


I have brittle bones it seems

by MFLuder



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Getting Together, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Lazarus Pit, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Talia al Ghul/Bruce Wayne, POV Dick Grayson, Past Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Past Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Pseudo-Incest, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: Dick doesn't have a soulmate and he's not okay with that, but lately, he's also too busy dealing with his little brother who has come back from the dead and a series of mysterious aches and pains to really think about it.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 23
Kudos: 311
Collections: Dick Grayson Fic Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cirth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirth/gifts).



> Written for the prompt: _Jaydick soulmate AU, angst and hurt/comfort with a happy ending. I'd love it if it was something like you can feel your soulmate's physical and/or mental pain, or you can *take* their pain so you suffer and they don't._ I hope I did it justice!
> 
> Title taken from Daughter's _Candles_.
> 
> _Well, I have brittle bones it seems  
>  I bite my tongue and I torch my dreams  
> Have a little voice to speak with  
> And a mind of thoughts and secrecy_
> 
> Rating note: The M is mostly for violence, actual and threatened. Not for sexual content which is less than you'd see on a CW show. I don't think it's worse than canon violence, but just in case anyone is very sensitive.
> 
> Thanks to my beta, xavierurban. I always appreciate your comma assistance and positive vibes as you read along. <3 Thank you also to my cabal of friends who are always great at provoking creativity when I get stuck and cheering me on.

Dick claws his way out of the dream, waking up to find himself covered in cold sweat, shivering, and panting like he’d just run a sprint. He finds himself tearing at his tank top, desperate to get it off, throwing it clear across the room in his haste. He sits up and leans back against the headboard, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark Blüdhaven night cut by neon lights that shine around the corners of his curtains. 

He looks at the clock; he hasn’t even been asleep that long. Only a few hours past when he’d crashed after patrol.

Gotham is too small for him _and_ Bruce these days. He rarely ventures over to the sister city, only does so to meet with Tim, even as every glimpse of Bruce hurts his heart.

He hadn’t been lying when he told Tim the boy knew nothing, couldn’t know anything about Batman, about Bruce, until he’s loved him as long as Dick has.

He wipes his hair back from his face and pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his elbows on them. The black sheets pool around his waist and in between his thighs, the comforter already on the floor.

The dream comes back to him, slowly, as his heartrate settles, and he comes back from the brink of panic.

_He was drowning. Above him, a figure, somehow familiar, but alien. The water gleamed oddly green as it filled his eyes, filled his nose, filled his chest as he struggled to breath. It forced its way in, not asking, and he struggled, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing to pull him up. In fact, something was holding him down, but even as he realized it, he grew too weak to leverage it, to fight back, to gain purchase on and heave himself from the water. Instead, the figure above him, on the other side of the water, just receded further and further and he sank._

_He thought he heard his name, but…_

There was still an overwhelming sense of drowning Dick felt, like his very skin and lungs remembered the water, despite it being a dream.

A nightmare, he supposes.

Dick rises on shaky legs and goes to the window, throwing open the curtains. His apartment here faces several skyscrapers. He lives in one, too, the easier to disappear into the night, to find the roof entrance, to scale down a few stories and sneak in his window. His building is much smaller than those around him, an older, almost Gothamesque-looking building that’s surrounded by solid concrete monstrosities that make up Blüdhaven; none of the architecture of Gotham, none of the shiny windows of Metropolis.

Citizens of ‘Haven try to make it cheery and he can see several balconies covered in twinkling lights, in potted plants. But at the end of the day, the neon lights surrounding the latest movie billboards are the brightest thing this city has to offer.

He sighs and slips back into bed, heedless of the mess he’s made. He sinks into his pillows, grateful for their comfort where he has nothing else these days – him and Kory having broken up after he was, well, a dick, for sleeping with Babs because of his own commitment issues. Now neither was talking to him, nor were half his friends, not understanding why he’d be so callous.

Dick didn’t know either.

Or at least, that’s what he told them, and himself in the daytime. Like this, alone, his mind told him exactly why.

He loved them. Both of them. Wanted them, either one, to be his match. His soulmate. He’d tried so hard. They were both his type: caring, kind, smart, talented. Babs had been his first girlfriend, the first person whose presence caused him think about sex. Kory’s kiss had startled him out that teen romance into one more adult. He’d though she was it.

But that was the problem. He loved them, but he wanted _too much_. Kory understood, but didn’t ascribe to human soulmate standards. And he’d hurt Babs too much by dropping her for Kory all those years ago like a fool. 

He clunks his head against the wooden bedframe a couple of times.

Sue him. He’d only ever wanted what his parents had. They’d been soulmates, known at first touch, just like the stories. They promised him one day he’d find his. At twenty-one, he still hasn’t.

All he’s found is an eternal tiredness, an existential dread, and now nightmares that leave a chill in his bones and cold clutching his stomach.

Dick doesn’t go back to sleep for a long time.

~~~

The first time he sees Jason again, he doesn’t even know it _is_ Jason. In the aftermath, he demands answers from Bruce, and it turns out Batman has known Red Hood was his dead son for about two months – and never bothered to mention it. But when Nightwing comes face to face with a large man in a red helmet who is wicked with knives and carries a gun, he doesn’t expect it to be his once little wing who died when Dick was off planet, leaving a hole in his heart.

All he knows is he’s found a red helmeted guy that he’s heard chopped off the heads of eight gang leaders, and now Nightwing sees him engaged in a gun exchange. He drops in to bust it up and is taken aback when the man seems to know his moves, to do more than anticipate and block, but to actively counter them.

They battle and Dick gets in a few good hits with his escrima, adjusting and rolling his shoulders when he feels an ache bloom over them.

“Who are you?” he demands and receives no response.

The helmet is disorienting; he’s used to villains showing emotions, whether maniacal glee, smugness, or brutish anger. The helmet is just… _blank_.

They fall into an easy back and forth and Dick almost feels like he’s sparring more than fighting a criminal. That is, until the man jabs his hand forward, taking Dick by surprise when he realizes there is a blade sticking out of the meat of his shoulder.

It seems to be a surprise to both of them, because the man in the red hood is suddenly clutching his own shoulder, knife resting against his brown leather jacket, almost clean, despite having stabbed Dick.

The pain is an afterthought to the shock, both of the stab itself and the other man’s strange reaction. Dick has no idea what he looks like, but he’s suddenly overtaken by the idea of the man in front of him with wide eyes and parted lips. Hood backs away, while Dick is still standing there, and then turns and runs.

Dick clutches at his shoulder, distracted enough to not run after him; besides, the other men cleared out and Hood left his bag of weapons in his haste to get away. His hand comes away bloody, but when he rotates his shoulder, it doesn’t feel like anything was significantly injured. He might be off patrol for a night or two to recover, but for a man who supposedly dumped heads on a conference table, his attack was surprisingly tame.

Precise, too, to manage such a clean stab. Dick leans down and picks up the heavy bag of guns with his uninjured shoulder, doing his best not to shake under the weight. Fortunately, he’s got a safe house not too far away. It’ll do for the night.

~~~

Three months later, Dick knows Red Hood is Jason, knows his brother grew up very well and, well, _large_ , and got a little Pit mad. He still doesn’t approve of his methods, but now that he’s calmed down – even if he and B are still at each other’s throats – Dick finds himself searching the rooftops for that red helmet.

Tonight, though, he got his ass handed to him by Blockbuster on the man’s latest crusade. In the end, his plans to rake in Blüdhaven’s treasury deposit cash was thwarted, but Dick is aching and sporting enough bruises that he looks like hell and feels worse. He limps back to his apartment, cradling his arm that is probably going to need stitches and he’s not looking forward to doing it himself.

When he enters his apartment, though, he’s instantly alert, pushing the pain to the background of his mind and riding on the last bit of adrenaline.

“Who’s there?” he calls, then winces because he sounds like every guy that’s ever died in a cop show.

The light in his living room flicks on, revealing Jason sitting in his spare stuffed chair, helmet placed on the end table, one leg crossed over the other. 

It’s all very dramatic, and Dick ends up snorting a laugh despite himself.

“Save that theater kid stuff for the villains, Jay,” he wheezes as the adrenaline flees from his body and all he feels is tired. He shuffles his feet and drops to the couch. “I really hope you didn’t come here to kill me, because I am simply not going to put up a fight. I feel like I just got put through the wringer.”

“Tell me about,” he swears he hears Jason mutter under his breath, but then he shifts and leans forward, elbows on his knees and his leather jacket creaking, and he frowns down at Dick.

“You know, it’s called backup for a reason, Dick Wing.”

“Because you’re one to talk,” Dick drawls.

“I don’t normally end up with bruised ribs, a twisted knee, and a gash that requires stitches.”

“How did you—?”

Jason just frowns at him, unimpressed.

“Okay, fine. Did you come here just to mock me? Speaking of, how did you get past my defenses—?”

“You and B,” Jason sighs, apparently very put out, “neither of you update your passwords or codes unless forced.”

“Well, I’ll be changing them tonight,” Dick grumbles in return, closing his eyes.

“I was slightly touched you remembered my birthday,” Jason needles.

Dick feels a blush burn high on his cheeks. Shit. He was so used to entering it, it barely had meaning anymore, even as it held a little memorial to his fallen – formerly fallen – replacement.

“Now get out of the suit.”

“Undressing me already?” Dick teases, without half the charm he could normally manage. “But we’re just getting to know each other.”

“Birthday code,” Jason singsongs, and Dick snorts as he forces himself off the cushions and into sitting upright.

He tries to reach his good arm back and gives up halfway. “Help,” he says, letting his arm flop back down. He would have managed, if he’d been alone, but if Jason’s going to break into his house, he might as well be useful.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Jason’s voice is deep, smug, but amused.

Jason gets up and comes to stand behind Dick and the couch. It’s strangely intimate, the other man sliding down the zipper of the Nightwing uniform, despite the fact that his hands don’t wander, don’t do anything but clinically help Dick peel off first the armor, then the top, some spots sticking to his skin due to sweat. He feels the blush rising, a sort of horrified red blooming over his chest. Dick has never been more relieved that his skin tone rarely shows his blushes. Still, Jason’s green eyes appear knowing as he comes back around, med kit in hand.

Dick looks away. He feels the reversal keenly; where once he knew Jason had a crush on him, now Dick feels like the teenager exposed in front of his crush.

 _You don’t have a crush_ , Dick scolds himself, proffering his arm for Jason to clean.

After getting out the bits of thread and dirt, Jason scowls down at the injury, still oozing blood. He gets up and turns on the overhead light as well. He comes back and together they sit, silent, as Jason threads the curved suture needle and gets to work.

Dick winces but doesn’t let himself move, keeping perfectly still as he watches Jason, teeth biting into his lower lip, make surgeon-esque stitches. As Jason leans forward, his hair falling to obscure his eyes from Dick’s view, he catches a hint of spice and the scent of warmed leather. There’s also the faint hint of cigarette smoke, and Dick feels weirdly pleased to know not everything has changed about him, despite his little wing not being so little anymore. He feels oddly calm, something in the back of his mind telling him Jason can be trusted, despite the small pale mark left from his blade a few months ago.

It’s mostly done before Dick gets the courage to speak. “What are you doing here?”

Jason’s eyes flicker up to his, bright and emerald in color, catching the light in the room. There’s a flush to his cheeks that Dick assumes is from concentration. “What does it look like, _Dick_? Stitching you up because you can’t be assed to dodge.”

“But why do you care?” Dick asks, ashamed of the plaintive note in his voice.

“I always cared, dumbass,” Jason says, soft, and for once, without sarcasm or malice.

Dick has no response for that, so he lets it linger in the air, instead turning to watch Jason finish putting gauze on his wound as if he’s hasn’t watched Alfred do the same one hundred times before.

His eyes wander over Jason’s hands, noting the surprising beautiful arch to his fingers, the way they gracefully move over Dick’s skin. His fingers are blunt and thick, but soft; they remind Dick of his father’s hands, calloused from years on the bar but still gentle when they ran through his mother’s hair or held Dick.

He also can’t help but notice the purple bruises across his right hand, the gash along his knuckles. It echoes Dick’s own bruises he doesn’t recall getting. He barely even realizes he’s doing it until it is too late, but with his free hand, he traces the marks left on Jason.

“Who did this to you?”

Jason snorts, shaking off Dick’s hand, though not unkindly. “Myself. Punched a wall.”

Dick winces in sympathy. “Here you are, fixing me up. But are you okay?”

“Are any of us okay?” Jason retorts, holding Dick’s arm in his grip, eyes burning into Dick.

“You want to talk about it?” Dick offers, tentative.

A chuff of laughter, but Jason’s face adopts the smallest hint of a smile. “Thanks, though.”

They exchange shaky smiles, and Dick feels something deep in him ease up, like their antagonism has held his heart in a vise.

Jason places the last butterfly clip around Dick’s wrapped arm and gets up off the coffee table. He wanders into the kitchen, fetching down a glass and filling it with the filtered water from the fridge, then detours to the bathroom. Dick hears the rattle of ibuprofen and then sees Jason come back out. He holds both out to Dick, who is still lazing on the couch, worn out, arm aching. He accepts the glass with his unbandaged arm, downing the pills. 

“You want to stay? I’ve got Hulu,” Dick asks, suddenly anxious at the thought of being alone, of losing the unusual friendliness with Jason.

Jason nudges the remote closer to Dick. “Nah. Places to go, people to see.”

Dick bobs his head like the brush off doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t think Jason meant it to.

Jason gathers up his jacket that he lost between one stitch and another, throwing it on over his hoodie and moving toward the window that he clearly used to break in, in the first place. He slides it up, the window clicking, letting in the night sounds.

“Hey, Dickhead.” Jason says, pausing his climb out the window to look back at Dick. It’d be amusing if Dick had it in him to laugh: one leg out, ass in, hands braced on the frame and the wall. “Try not to die.”

Dick snorts once more and rests his head back against the cushions of his couch as Jason slips the rest of the way through the window, shutting it behind him and making it feel like no one was even there.

~~~

From then on, Dick begins to see Jason – or Red Hood – a little more often. It’s usually just a glimpse out of the corner of his eye or the sense that he’s being followed, but without the prick of concern that comes with a new set of eyes. Dick never seeks Jason out, but each time there’s the heavy feel of a dark gaze on him, something loosens in his chest, making it a little easier to go on.

He only actually sees Jason once in the next few months, out at a club where Dick is doing recon on one of the many drugs that travel Gotham streets. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t even know this was Red Hood territory, until he glances up, sometime after eleven pm, to find a familiar figure in entirely unfamiliar clothing leaning over the second story railing, surveying his kingdom, fingers tapping along to the base beat of the DJ.

Not even five minutes later, after their eyes meet, a large black man with bulging forearms and dressed in bouncer black is “inviting” Dick upstairs with a no arguments allowed tone of voice and big presence. Dick’s not in a mood to fight, even curious as to what Jason has to say.

“Thanks, Carlos,” Jason says, his voice dripping his Gotham accent, the one he’d spent a year practicing to get rid of when he was freshly training with Bruce.

Carlos nods and closes the glass door to the office, turning his back to them and calmly waiting outside; a dragon guarding his king in the castle.

“Swanky digs,” Dick says, glancing around and trying, more surreptitiously, to take in the unusual image of Jason Todd.

Jason looks more than his actual twenty-years and more like the years his ID to own this club says, though it’s not because he looks old; he simply looks…good. Mature.

He looks, Dick thinks, like someone who could be Bruce Wayne’s son.

His dark grey suit is clearly bespoke and tailored to show off both muscles and lean body, all without displaying the sheer raw power Dick knows lies in those muscles. His button up underneath is blood red, rich and vibrant, and the contrast to his dark hair and pale skin is sharp. He’s got a few buttons undone, exposing the edge of his collarbone, and he’s holding a glass of champagne, his silver cufflinks catching in the lights that shine in from the club below.

The office isn’t shabby either. Big windows look out over the northern warehouse district of Gotham. The chairs are solid oak, as is the desk that looks more suited to a lawyer’s midtown office than a club, even one as elite and classic as The Pageant. Red velvet drapes outline the windows, and there’s a thick plush rug just under the desk, leaving the rest of the room showing off hardwoods from the nineteen-twenties – original. The wall behind Dick is glass, too; it is what is letting the club atmosphere in, even as it keeps the bass to a muted roar that rattles Dick’s bones.

Jason sits on the edge of the desk, and Dick’s never thought this before, but the atmosphere suits him. Suits him as much as the tapered leg on his pants slides up to expose a surprisingly delicate ankle bone, how the pants do little to hide that Jason is big in areas beyond height – though not tight enough to be obscene.

Dick thinks he should get on his knees, then shakes the thought out of his head.

Jason smirks at him like he can read Dick’s mind, and it causes Dick’s stomach to flip and a new arousal to flare in his groin.

“Well, fancy us meeting here like this. Daddy send you over?” Jason asks, before taking another sip of his drink. Then he pauses, arching his neck to a small bar cart in the corner behind him. “Where are my manners, Mr. Grayson. A drink, perhaps?”

Dick’s shaking his head, but Jason still stands and walks over, pouring two fingers worth of bourbon into a heavy-bottomed glass, then plopping one round ice cube into it. Long fingers curl around the glass, and Dick feels caught in Jason’s intense stare as he wanders back, physically placing Dick’s hand around the glass.

Then, with audacity, he chucks Dick’s chin and murmurs, “Drink up.”

It is an act, _all_ an act, Dick knows. An act for anyone who might peer in from outside, for anyone in the club who can see in from the other side of the second floor where VIP sits, an act for Carlos.

But something about Jason’s woody cologne and the callouses on his fingertips feel more like home than they do a threat, despite the setting. He swallows – and then he swallows a sip of the bourbon down.

Jason shrugs, a glimmer in his eye and a tease to his lowered voice. “Someone should enjoy it; you’re the only one old enough in this room to be drinking, after all.”

Dick then realizes that Jason was not drinking actual champagne but the fake kind, probably the fizzy grape juice grocery stores sell at holiday time to appease the children and non-drinkers.

Dick leans in, keeping up the charade, making it look like he’s flirting back, and says, “Don’t lie and say you don’t drink, Jaybird.”

“No,” Jason practically coos, lifting a thumb to wipe a drop of liquor off Dick’s bottom lip. The touch leaves him on fire, and Dick can feel his brow wrinkle with the confusion churning through his gut. “But not on the job.”

Jason lifts his thumb to his own mouth and parts his lips to taste the liquor. It’s fucking sinful, and Dick’s _little brother_ shouldn’t be able to do that to him.

“Fucking hell,” Dick mumbles, feeling out of sorts.

“Language, Mr. Grayson,” Jason says with a grin Dick knows too well from when he was sixteen and flying over rooftops. “Now, have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the velvet paisley-printed chaise lounge Dick had barely even noticed in the office behind him. Jason’s voice raises, goes more baritone, more serious as he says this.

Dick sits.

“You’re here about the Q, I presume?”

Dick nods, running a hand through his dark hair and grimacing at the feel of the gel he’d used to slick it back. He wipes his hands on his jeans, strangely reluctant to ruin Jason’s furniture.

Jason sighs. “You head a crime business, a club business, and family doesn’t even ask you first. I could have told _him_ I’ve already narrowed the source and distribution if he’d just _asked_.”

Dick looks up at Jason who is now half sitting on his desk again, hands holding the edge, suddenly looking his age and like a son who simply wants his father’s attention. “You know that’s not how he works.”

Jason snorts and crosses his arms, probably looking menacing to anyone looking in, but to Dick, he just looks defensive. “Doesn’t trust _me_ , you mean.”

Dick gives a half shrug, lips parting in a small grimace. “You two have a long way to go.”

“What about you?” Jason asks, his eyes and posture suddenly intense as he looks at Dick. “Do you trust me?”

“Can I?” Dick asks in return, holding his hands out, palms up where they rest on his knees.

Jason studies him, his green eyes dark in the dim office. Finally, he comes to some conclusion and sighs, arms dropping back to his sides. “Q’s being imported from Brazil, run through the ports because, _of course_. The thing is, someone found one of Ivy’s plants – yes, I asked, we already hashed it out – and increased its toxicity. That’s why people are dying. It’s basically ecstasy but with a strong enough dose, people will do anything for touch and sometimes that’s bad hookups and sometimes its wandering through the streets and falling into the river because nothing else feels like enough.

“I was going to stop it, but even though he sent you as his lapdog, I’ll let you take back the tip. Maybe it’ll boost Red Hood’s methods in his eyes.” Jason is rolling his eyes as he says this, so he knows just how likely Bruce – or Batman – will be to thank him.

He stands up from the desk, walking over and pulling Dick back to his feet. “I won’t apologize, but you will thank me later when the VIPs over there think you’re nothing more than the club owner’s newest boytoy to be plied with liquor for gossip and prestige.” 

Jason leans in, his eyes a deep emerald now that Dick can see them reflected in the strobe lights. He licks his lips, leaving them wet and pink. He tugs on Dick’s blue tie with one hand, the other reaching around behind him, settling carefully on the curve of his back.

“Find Pietr Arsenyev,” Jason whispers in his ear, accent gone, only the smooth baritone Dick is used to: a nonaccent accent. Then, Jason leans back just enough to find Dick’s mouth with his own.

It’s an explosion of fireworks inside Dick’s head; his limbs go rigid in shock, his body tingling where Jason’s hand creeps down to clutch at his ass possessively, his lips nothing but cold dead fish because _what the hell is Jason doing and why does he like it?_ It feels _right_ in a way nothing else ever has.

“Okay, geez, Dickie, I thought you were a better actor than this,” comes Jason’s voice, floating up to Dick’s static-filled ears, and then it hits him. _It’s part of the show_.

So Dick takes it and runs with it, hands lifting to clutch Jason’s lapels in his fists, thrusting his pelvis a little forward, and bending backwards so that Jason has to quickly rearrange his feet, stepping them outside of Dick’s, and uses both hands on Dick’s back to hold him up. This time Dick opens his mouth, becomes an active participant, succumbing to the heat of Jason’s mouth, chasing the cheap grape flavor until he tastes nothing but spit.

Jason’s hands clutch at him, and he gives a small moan Dick is weirdly proud of provoking, even as he’s struggling to hold his own in, to keep from climbing Jason like the tree-shaped man he is: all broad back, slim trunk, and height.

Eventually, they separate, Dick biting his lip to keep from leaning in again because this is a _show, Dick_. He can’t hide the heavy breathing though, and Jason flickers his eyes down and back up, hooded and somehow darker than before. He pulls back, though, leaving Dick cold and with a headache.

“Carlos,” Jason calls, pressing a button on his desk, thick accent back.

Carlos turns and opens the glass doors. “Yes, Mr. Vermeil?”

“Take, uh, Mr. Grayson here, over to the VIP section. Give him the works.” Jason presses two fingers against his temple as he gives instructions.

“Of course,” Carlos responds, not batting an eyelash at Dick’s crooked tie or the fact that, somehow in the midst of kissing, his shirt came untucked from his jeans.

Jason turns away, and Dick adjusts himself and his attire as Carlos walks him around the mezzanine to the sensuously lit seating area featuring high tables and low-slung, soft benches. He doesn’t see Jason for the rest of the night, but he does meet Mr. Arsenyev and find out the information Batman will need to halt production of the toxin-laced Q.

It’s only the next day, after his debriefing with Bruce, that Dick puts it together. Vermeil. _Red_. Jason’s legitimate business name is Mr. Red.

~~~

Over the next several months, Dick continues to collect strange bruises that he doesn’t recall earning, and he begins to worry about his memory and sense of perception while fighting. He eventually goes to Batman, under the guise of additional training and continuing to bridge the gap the family has had in it since Jason came back. When they both end up sweaty and it takes six hours for Dick to go down, he decides there’s nothing to be concerned about. Of course, once he’s there, Bruce insists on a gambit of tests anyway, to update records, and apparently Dick wasn’t subtle because when his tests come back with nothing unusual, Bruce looks at him and raises an eyebrow, asks, “You feel better now?”

Dick buries his face in his hands, and Bruce just pushes over the teacup and cookie Alfred left for him.

“You want to talk about it?”

It is so similar to what he asked Jason a few months back that Dick laughs and responds the same; a shake of the head and a “Thanks, though.”

Bruce doesn’t even shrug – he probably expected the answer – and turns back to his computer. “You’re welcome to stay any time.”

“I know.”

“Tim’s upstairs. I think he’d like to see you,” Bruce says before Dick can see Batman taking over, Bruce’s face going staid and stone-like as he delves into whatever his latest case is.

He doesn’t stay, but he sees his younger brother. His way back to Blüdhaven that night is free from the presence he’s come to seek comfort in, and he wonders if Jason’s just busy, or if Dick visiting the Manor put him off.

He forgets about the aches and pains.

~~~

Dick doesn’t know how long he’s been in the cold, damp basement. He’s been hanging from his wrists, sweat mixed with cold chill and blood dripping from his nose for what feels like months, but is probably only days, maybe only hours. Many, many hours.

He’s been left with only his athletic boxers for coverage; the modesty it brings leaves him grateful even if it isn’t much. He supposes he should be glad it was Yakuza that overcame him and not Pyg’s goons. He enjoys both his face and his dick – _heh_ – where they are. 

God. He’s now laughing at his own dick jokes? He _has_ been here too long.

Dick looks once more around, trying to find any means of escape. It’s the same as it was an hour ago, the same as when he first got in here. Only now, he’s too tired to heave his body up the ten feet of chains from which he hangs down from a hook in the cavernous basement of some old warehouse or dock building. He hasn’t given up, but it looks bleak, and he’s left hoping Oracle or someone tries to contact him tonight, that someone realizes he’s gone. Dick zones out and in, shivering with cold in the damp basement – probably means it is near the docks since its summertime, he realizes, foggily.

Eventually, there’s a commotion and one of the scar-riddled Yakuza bangs into his previously quiet basement cell, knife in hand. Oh, great.

“Boss decided you are too much trouble. Might bring the Bat down on us,” the man says in stilted English.

“Might?” Dick laughs, doing his best to keep up a façade. “He’s probably on his way here, right now.”

“Not yet,” the man says, smug. “You know, you are pretty. If one likes that type.”

“Oh, have we moved on to the rape threats? You’re not the first, pal,” Dick drawls, even as his gut clenches. It doesn’t matter how many times it happens; the threats always frighten him more than the additional scars or even the stomach wounds.

“Not my type,” the man grins. Then the grin turns wicked. “But a knife has no type. Let’s begin.”

Dick’s stomach drops and he gulps, thrashing in a manner he hasn’t had the energy for in several hours. The man laughs, a brittle cackle. 

“Now, we begin.”

Dick lets himself disassociate then, the trick Batman taught them when they were young, that Tim is getting the hang of now, that he hopes Jason knew before Joker ever touched him. He barely recognizes the flame of pain as the man begins to slice; each villain has their own pattern, their own interest in leaving a mark on his body, and Nightwing knows each one, even when the scars fade or never manifest. The knife is sharp and not serrated, thankfully, leaving clean cuts that simply bleed a lot. Blood is pooling beneath him, but in Dick’s mind, he’s standing by a lakeside, Wally next to him, red hair glinting in the sun, skipping rocks in the middle of small-town America.

Dick barely rouses when there’s a loud commotion, and it’s only the fact that the henchman stops his cuts just above his ass that pulls Dick out of his state. The cuts had become a minor nuisance in the background, though it had been harder to maintain as the blade – and the blade’s hull – had crept closer to the back of his thighs, the man _slipping_ and intimating the rough treatment Nightwing might receive, growing more bold as he did nothing but allow the torture to happen.

He hears a bellow and the sound of machine gun fire. Okay, so not Batman. Maybe GCPD had caught whiff of Yakuza trafficking, the same way Dick had, and is here to upset the nest of the gang.

The more he listens though, comes back into his body, feeling the aches, the burning sting of a hundred knife cuts, feels the blood dripping from him, he realizes there are no sirens, no calls of “Police!” or anything that would accompany the cops. In fact, if he’s not entirely delusional, it sounds more like an elephant in control of a gun, heavy feet and heedless of any sense of stealth or tactics. One man on a path of chaos.

When the door at the other end of the basement bursts open, Dick isn’t surprised to see it’s Red Hood. He barely looks out of breath after all the noise – though it’s not like Dick can tell anything from the helmet – blood splattered on his jacket and cargo pants. He’s got an AR-57 strapped over his chest, creating an imposing figure, especially with the blank helmet.

The man who was busy creating his own art piece on Dick’s body drops the knife and yells out something in Japanese, his hands held out. A quick _brrap-brrap_ and the man behind Dick falls, a quiet thud in comparison to his screams. Dick doesn’t look.

Another splatter of bullets and Dick falls to the ground, caught halfway by Hood’s big arms, cushioning the impact. Dick looks up, and if it weren’t for the blood and gun and helmet, he’d call the moment romantic.

Seriously, he’s lost too much blood.

“How…how did you find me?” he asks, voice thick and scratchy with disuse when he manages to stand on his own, noticing the cold on his bare feet, but not really _feeling_ it.

Red Hood sweeps the basement and moves into a corner when he spies what he was looking for. He comes back with a too big shirt and too big pants. At least there’s a belt. They don’t smell great and probably won’t help with Dick’s wounds and infection chances, but it’s better than escaping the building nearly naked, so he’s grateful for Jason’s forethought. The other man doesn’t look away, but Dick’s lost too much blood to be embarrassed as he dresses.

“We are definitely discussing this later,” growls Red Hood. “The no back up thing. Right now, I got some bastards to kill.”

“No killing, Hood!” Dick yells, desperately, holding his side, breathing through the additional pain yelling causes as his ribs expand.

Hood stops and looks back at him, helmet a blank slate under the red hoodie. Still, somehow, Dick knows Jason is assessing him, considering. “We’ll talk about that, too, later. But fine. No killing. _For now_.” Jason continues to look at him. “You good to make it up without help?"

“I’m fine,” Dick says, waving Red Hood off. The warehouse needs to be secured. “Get the civilians.”

Then Hood is off, his footsteps heavy once more instead of the silent Dick knows they can be, done not to alert his prey, but to terrify them. Gunshots echo back to Dick and as he slides down the wall, feeling like all the blood has drained from him, he hopes Jason is keeping his word. He was lying when he said he was fine, but the victims always come first – it’s their job. Jason will understand, later.

Dick phases in and out. At one point, it feels like someone is carrying him. At another, he swears he hears someone telling him to hang on, hears his name amidst a set of curses. It’s all a jumble, but he can’t garner the strength to truly wake up, to ask, to find out if he’s safe. At this point, Dick figures, either Hood got him out or they’re both fucked and he’s going to die. He’d rather pass away peacefully.

Despite the sentiment, how easy it would be, something else keeps him hanging on, a sense of warmth, of strength. It feels a lot like love. But that’s ridiculous, because the only way he’d feel that was if he had a soulmate – someone keeping him alive, wanting him alive. 

Dick doesn’t have one of those.

When Dick wakes up, properly, the first thing he sees is Jason’s pale face, heavily shadowed with scruff and purple undereye circles. He’s half asleep in a chair next to Dick’s head, but almost as soon as Dick looks at him, his eyes snap open and he’s bending over Dick.

“Hey, circus boy. How ya feeling?” he asks, green eyes flickering over Dick’s face in concern.

Dick tries to respond but can’t get anything out. Jason reaches for a plastic cup and tilts it to Dick’s mouth, helping him keep his head up for the ten seconds it takes to drink half the cup. He realizes he’s in his own apartment, his own bed, with a blanket thrown across that he’s never seen before. It smells like Jason.

Eventually, Dick cracks out, “You should be nicer to your brother.”

Jason winces and sits back down. “Yeah, no. Not your brother.” 

Weirdly, in that moment, Dick agrees with him. It was more habit than anything. The desire to tease and make light. “You’re right,” he whispers.

Jason’s face twists and his eyes roll. “Did you just admit I’m right about something? Now I _know_ you have a concussion.”

Dick closes his eyes and smiles. He moves, attempting to stretch out, but stops when he hears Jason hiss a gasp of pain. He blinks his eyes back open. “Hey. You get hit, too?”

Jason shakes his head, his lips pursed. He’s wearing a dark gray Henley that hugs his shoulders and pectoral muscles, and soft black sweatpants that look a little short on him, like maybe he’s grown out of them, but has been reluctant to let go.

Dick knows what that’s like: a small leather bracelet once given to him by a fourteen-year-old Jason still kept in his emergency bag – the one he takes when he can’t take anything else.

“Did you get the civilians to safety?” he asks, remembering he wasn’t even awake to escape; Jason must have carried him the whole way.

He gets a nod and breathes a sigh of relief. Dick sinks back into the pillows and sheets that smell freshly washed.

“If I’m a bother, then, you can go home, okay? I’ll call Alfred. You’ve done enough. More than.” Dick tries to say it as kindly as he can, not wanting Jason to think he doesn’t want him, doesn’t appreciate him, and scare him off again. Only that, if _Jason_ doesn’t want to be here, he shouldn’t feel obligated.

Jason blinks, then gets up and starts pacing. “No, you gigantic idiot. I didn’t get hit and I’m not going anywhere. Not again. We are gonna have that talk right now. A little come-to-Jesus moment.” He stops and faces Dick, full on, hands on his hips. He inhales and then lets his next words out all on the exhale. “ _I’myoursoulmate_.”

Dick blinks, staring up at Jason whose lips go thin, like he’s waiting for rejection or to be yelled at. It’s the same face he gets when confronting Bruce since he came back. “What?” Dick asks, intelligently.

“I. Am. Your. Soulmate.”

“Bullshit,” Dick says, voice gone brittle and angry.

Jason slumps down into the chair, head in his hands.

“Why would you say that, Jay? I know you came back different, but I didn’t think you came back as someone with _no_ soul. I don’t have a soulmate and it’s not nice to mock that fact.” 

Dick slides back into the pillows, burrowing under the blankets, raising his legs off the bed just enough to alleviate the ache from the cuts on his upper thighs. He’s scared to think about the fact that he’s covered in bandages and his sheets are free of blood; it means at some point, Jason saw all of him, undressed him from those awful clothes he’d found and cleaned every part of Dick. Hell, he doesn’t even smell like anything beyond antiseptic and the warm scent of Jason’s blanket; definitely not like he was left hanging in a basement for who knows how long.

“You do have a soulmate, Dick. Trust me, this is not something I’d lie about. Too embarrassing when I know you knew about my crush before you died.”

Dick doesn’t shrug, but only because he hurts.

“I mean, I’m not going to judge teenage you. But that’s why I don’t get why you’d joke about this now.”

“It’s not a joke,” Jason responds, exasperated. “Look, here.” He casts about, finally settles on one of Dick’s escrima. He gets up and brings it over. He hands it to Dick, electrified end facing himself. “Shock me.”

“Yeah, not going to do that,” he says, bluntly.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Fine. Do it myself, goddamn.”

He grabs the stick back from Dick’s limp grasp and then pauses. “I’m sorry for this.”

“What are you—Oh, fuck!” Dick ends up yelling, clutching his forearm where a brief pain is strong enough to take him by surprise.

Jason turns and shows him his arm, a circle of skin slightly singed.

“What the hell does that even mean—”

Jason does it again, this time tossing the stick into his other hand and electrifying himself on the opposite forearm. Dick doesn’t make a noise this time, but the pain still shows up, brief and aching, right where Jason shocked himself.

Then, without saying anything else, he pulls up his Henley, revealing both defined abs and a large, light purple bruise over his ribs. “This isn’t from me. No one beat _me_ up, recently. But you know what? _You_ recently were beat by those Yakuza. Nothing broken, fortunately, but your bruised ribs are enough to have left a visible mark on me.”

He takes a breath and sits back down. “That’s how I found you, Dick. When B and Oracle or even Replacement didn’t know where you were. I followed your _pain_.”

Dick splutters. “But we, I mean, we’ve never…”

Jason raises one thick eyebrow. “We’ve never what? Never dated? Never fucked? You’ve never looked at me as anything more than your annoying little brother? Yeah, I _know_ that. Still, I know you felt that kiss just as much as I did. In the club. Something’s changed, Dick. You finally feel it, too.”

Something changed, all right. Jason is no longer that small, leggy child who followed along in his footsteps quoting Austen at him, worship in his eyes.

“Is it because I’m a guy? Are you so stuck on some inane insistence that you’re straight that you’ll ignore your soulm—”

“Jason, I absolutely do not care if my soulmate is a man. I’ve probably sucked more cock than you, three times over,” Dick responds, droll.

Jason’s fish mouth gape, before he recovers and clamps his lips shut, is worth it.

“I just…” Dick swipes a hand over his face, tired even as he wants to laugh at Jason’s expression. He needs a trim, the strands of his bangs falling further into his face than he’d like. “Every person I thought could be my soulmate wasn’t. And that hurt; _I_ hurt people. Jason, no offense, but I never looked at you like that. How could you possibly be my soulmate when I only just realized you’re my type?”

“So, you’re saying I’m your type?”

Jason’s joke is so obvious, his chest puffed up, that Dick can’t help but laugh, regretting it when his ribs ache. “Yeah, big boy,” he manages to wheeze.

Jason’s eyes go heated then soft, helping Dick to sit up, to shift in the bed.

“Thanks,” Dick says after he gets his breath back. “For taking care of me. Again.”

Jason shrugs. “Technically, it’s taking care of myself, too. I don’t like your aches on top of mine. I may have returned from the dead, but I _am_ only twenty.”

“You’re going to have to tell me about that one day, you know.”

Huffing a laugh, Jason responds, “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself. I mean, the Pit gave me back my mind but what brought me back…I don’t know. Not even Talia does.”

Dick thinks he dozes off after that, because next thing he knows, Jason is coming into the bedroom with new wrappings. They’re both quiet as he changes everything he can reach on Dick, without forcing him out of bed. He aches, deep and into his bones, but nothing is sharply painful anymore, and as he assesses Jason’s work, he thinks, once again, he won’t have many scars because of his work.

“What makes you so sure?” he asks, out of nowhere, but Jason seems to know what he means, sitting back once more. The fingers of his right hand drum a small rhythm on the chair’s stuffed arm.

“How does anyone know? I guess, once I met you, I always just knew. And maybe it was wishful thinking. But even when—” he swallows. “Even when the Joker was beating me, something kept me alive, something that didn’t feel like me. I thought it was my need to get my mom out. But maybe it wasn’t. I guess I _knew_ that day I stabbed you. When I felt the feedback, my own shoulder seizing.” By the end, his voice is tight, shaky.

“That’s why you ran.”

The other man nods, his curls shaking. He hasn’t dyed his hair in a while; the white streak shows under the top layer. His freckles stand out over his nose. There’s something soft and desperate in his eyes.

Jason holds up one hand. “Try?”

Jason still believes, even in the face of Dick’s denial. 

Dick sighs, responds flippantly, “Fine,” and holds his hand up, touching his palm to Jason’s in the common form of assessing if someone is your soulmate. After a moment there’s nothing and he yanks his hand back. “See. Jason, I’m not bothered by your attraction to me, hell, maybe even, in the future…but you’re not my soulmate. _I don’t have one_.”

“Dick,” Jason pleads, and in the end, it’s a combination of the blush high on his cheeks and the hint of shadow in his eyes, knowing he’ll be rejected, that convinces Dick to acquiesce.

“One more time,” he agrees.

He shifts and moves on the bed and then half stands to tug Jason onto the bed with him. Dick winces, and Jason ends up helping him with a hand back to the bed. He supposes it won’t hurt to really try. Just to make Jason lose that sorrowful expression. It can’t be any more disappointing than the time he tried with Babs and Kory, watching their sad eyes when they each realized it wasn’t _meant to be_.

They both sit there – Dick under the sheets, Jason cross-legged on top – and Dick raises his hand.

Again, nothing happens for a moment, but Jason wraps his hand around Dick’s keeping him there, and Dick loses himself in the feeling of those hands; calloused, yet soft. Warm. Jason’s thumb traces a small pathway on his skin, achingly gentle.

He’s so caught up in the hypnotizing motion that he doesn’t feel it at first. The gentle warmth of someone else in the back of his mind. A presence that’s nothing more than the notion of thoughts and emotions.

But then—

_Dick?_

He gasps, awed. Because Jason’s lips hadn’t moved. Dick was staring right at them – sue him, they’re big and full and Dick wants them on his – and Jason’s mouth didn’t move.

He feels it now, that presence, shy and small; a scared thing more befitting to Jason when he was fifteen and probably first knew Dick was his soulmate, than the tough Red Hood he is now. 

Dick closes his eyes and lets himself feel it, for the very first time. Maybe, unsurprisingly, it feels familiar. Like every thought his subconscious has given him, like every time he was devastated and alone but didn’t give up. A presence that’s told him to keep going, that he was worth something, that someone was there for him.

He opens his eyes and says – out loud, he thinks – “When you were gone…I’m sorry. I know you have gone through things that Bruce, that _I_ don’t know about. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.

“But how did it survive?” Dick asks, awed.

Jason shrugs, letting their hands drop, though he doesn’t stop holding on, his fingers cupped in Dick’s palm. “How do soulmates work in the first place? I think it’s something not even the gods like Diana or the aliens like Clark have figured out.

“But Talia said, she told me, when I came back, after the Pit, it restored everything. That it deepened the connection. She says the Pit takes a bit of the person’s soulmate to revive the person. That’s why you can feel my pain; it’s why I feel yours. It connected us more than most soulmates.”

Jason sighs. “Not that I was in a state to protest, but if I’d known, I wouldn’t have done it. I never meant to tie you down, Dick.” His hand slips away, and Dick can practically see the walls come up with the change in Jason’s posture. “I wasn’t even planning on telling you, ever. But you’re fucking stubborn and prone to injury.”

Dick snorts. “Yeah, because all those mysterious bruises I got in this last year suggest you’re so good at being injury-free.”

“Hey!” Jason exclaims, looking disgruntled. “ _I’m_ not the one who got tortured.”

Dick thinks, feels around the small sense of _mineyourswant_ in his mind and says, “If it brought me my soulmate, it was worth it.”

Jason blushes. Shakes his head, his curls tumbling into his eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

Dick reaches out, fast before Jason can withdraw off the bed entirely. “Don’t tell me what I mean. All this time, I thought I was alone. That I didn’t have anyone. I can’t express the way it made me feel.”

Dick knows. It made him anxious, depressed, desolate. Like a wanderer cursed to forever seek his home and never find it. Sisyphus and his rock. He’s not ready to share that, yet. He and Jason have a lot to get through, first.

“And maybe I never considered it was you. Maybe I was so caught up in the belief that you were my little brother that I failed, I never let myself _feel_ it. You came back, but you seemed so far away. I didn’t want to push, to lose you again.”

“I’m not that little kid with a crush on you anymore, Dickie.”

Dick lets his eyes wander. “No. No, you’re not.”

Jason manages to blush and preen at the same time, his Mr. Vermeil smirk lighting on his facial features.

“Come here, Jay,” Dick says soft, beckoning. “Lay with me.”

“You should eat. I made some toast. You’re going to take a while to heal.”

“And now, I know you hurt, too. Rest. My stomach can wait.”

Jason crawls over, and Dick wraps his arms around his not-so-little and not-actually brother. No, his soulmate is a big man and Dick instantly burrows, reveling in the familiar woods and spice scent, detectable even under the soap and fabric softener smells.

“Dick,” Jason says, something like wonder breaking his voice and Dick looks up, reaches up, ignoring the twinge it puts in his side, and tilts Jason’s head down to his. They don’t even kiss – they have time for that, now – but they breathe in each other and for the first time, Dick falls asleep and doesn’t feel alone.


	2. Epilogue

“Mama, I’m a Bat!”

Talia looks down at her three-year-old son, the one she made with her soulmate, the one who refuses her, who is her beloved but denies it, and smiles. She suffers for it, but she will not have that for her son.

That night, she tells little Damian a story of the Pit he was washed in upon birth, a pool of green that gives and takes. She knows it intimately, the aches and pains that lie invisible in her bones from where a man has been beaten on his mission to save a city from itself.

In a lilting, almost sing-song voice in her native tongue, Talia tells her son how lucky he will be. “Damian, son of my beloved, you will know pain in your life. You will give pain, and for some time, neither of you will know why. But one day, the very same waters that give you life will give you love. You’ll realize who your soulmate is, because of the pain you receive. And even if they reject you, you will know.”

Damian’s green eyes are wide, and he opens his mouth to ask something, but she shushes him with a gentle noise and a hand in his hair.

“But Damian, my love, how could anyone reject you? You will be strong and the heir to an entire kingdom. You will be your father’s son and conquer Gotham. You will be Ra’s grandson and inherit Nanda Parbat. Most of all, you will know my love. Whoever they are, they do not deserve you. But perhaps, one day, you will deserve them.”

“I do my best, Mama,” Damian says, very seriously, quiet and with drowsy eyes. He turns on his side, sucking his thumb into his mouth. Talia frowns, but lets him have the comfort. For years to come, he won’t have many of those.

“I know you will, my love,” she says, and sweeps out of the room.

Damian dreams.


End file.
